"A $10K Bounty Awaits Anyone Who Can Hack Ring Cameras to Stop Sharing Data With Amazon" www.wired.com/story/a-10k-...

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has passed away at the age of 84. My thoughts are with his family. I wanted to share this clip from his appearance on Sesame Street in 1971. His important words ring just as true today as they did back then.

“In times of crisis Australians are great at doing the right thing morally and socially, which is also the smart thing economically. What would it take to do so all the time?” - Lukas Ringland Read the full piece on The Point: https://theaus.in/3OeQxqx

A must watch.

Many of my friends who have adopted Ring style doorbell cameras aren’t aware that these technologies serve markets far beyond the front door. I get the anxiety and the ‘what if’ logic of security, but these cameras give me the ick! Keeping an anxious poodle is a better security option imo

As always - remember this is what they do when they know they are being filmed.

Brisbane showed up for Palestine tonight 🍉

Bannon (and his buddies) are using an informational strategy called reflexive control that intentionally exploits the reaction of his adversaries (on the left) to inflict damage on their own side. Don't become an unwitting agent in their information operation.

Any time Sky News Australia comes up in discourse, please feel most welcome and free to cite this research, which shows empirically that is is a propaganda machine. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Hey BlueSky, most of you have access to internet connectivity that the people of Iran currently do not. Do me a favour and share this podcast episode from the DMRC Digital Publics group. We can no longer accept catastrophic silence. Solidarity means paying attention and creating visibility

theconversation.com/iran-protest... Great article contextualising the crisis in Iran and how it connects with rising authoritarianism and erosion in institutional trust and trustworthiness

Hundreds of faces among thousands, truly gutted by the atrocities we are seeing the Iranian regime perpetrate on its own people

We've analysed new videos published by @vahid.online that show rows of body bags at the Kahrizak mortuary in Tehran on 10 January. We've counted at least 186 bodies in one clip and at least 178 bodies in another, although the true figure is likely much higher. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Extremely important & timely piece by @mahsaalimardani.bsky.social of WITNESS on the informational complexities around the protests in Iran, describing the “epistemic fog”, the blackout of communications, and powerful efforts to frame and reframe the protests and the brutal response from the regime.

📢 PhD Scholarship at QUT to join my DECRA project "Democratic Resilience Online: Strengthening Public Opinion Formation Amid Digital Threats" @qutdmrc.bsky.social 📅 Applications close: 13/03/2026 More info here: www.qut.edu.au/study/fees-a... Please share and reach out if you have questions!

The first reports of the harms of the social media ban is having on vulnerable kids are out. This is what happens when policy is designed without listening to experts, not tackling the problem of harmful algorithms and business practices and just banning people from accessing parts of the internet.

Meanwhile

Australia's social media ban for children under 16 begins today. Our explainer paper provides an overview of the complex issue of social media bans for young teens, explaining the technical challenges, potential risks, and specific concerns voiced by parents and carers. Read it here: qut.to/1ww5%

Our new article shows how the trend of data dismantling and artificially creating data scarcity about key public issues is affecting scrutiny and journalism investigations. Great working with Mathias Felipe de Lima Santos, @antmandan.bsky.social @tjthomson.bsky.social 360info.org/governments-...

PhD researcher Kate FitzGerald has a new article out in The Conversation today looking at generative AI chatbots and conspiracy theories.

👋 So hello world, we did a thing. 🎁 Might be useful for some people ? #misinformation #disinformation #fakenews

Here's a new resource from @qutdmrc.bsky.social to explain #problematicinformation (and its various forms), harms, tips to help navigate online info environments, and what can be done. Access and download here: research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/explain... #informationintegrity #misinformation #disinformation

"Research shows that features like Face ID and fingerprints enable violent, forced phone access by police and authorities" the-decenter.ghost.io/the-body-as-... by Afsaneh Rigot

What happens when Google stops sending you to websites & starts answering questions itself? In this podcast episode ADM+S researchers Ashwin Nagappa, Oleg Zendel & Sara Al Lawati discuss what the future of search means for all of us bit.ly/48zWDK9 #GoogleSearch #AIMode

📢2026 Fellowship applications are OPEN!📢 If you are someone looking to inform technology policy through rigorous original reporting or policy analyses, we want to hear from you! Apply here: airtable.com/appIrc1F9M5d...

We just released a *big* working paper on Voice AI and Authenticity as part of the ARC CoE for Automated Decision-Making and Society @admscentre.org.au It surveys the history of the tech, emerging issues, and what can be done Check it out at Australian Policy Online here: apo.org.au/node/331920

Join NTEU members this Sunday 24 August at marches across the country in solidarity with Palestine. Find out where it’s happening in your city 👉 nteu.info/24 @nteuact.bsky.social @nteuvictoria.bsky.social

"We need to engage in discourse about how we make sure that we maximise the benefits but minimise any of the other factors that need to be considered." is exactly the kind of running the clock say nothing quotable over media trained blandfest that I was talking about in my last post.

When I see a GenAI celebrity images in the wild I often find it as many likes/reacts but also a heap of critical comments. I find it interesting how the boundaries around GenAI and meaning making/cultural participation are debated whenever an event like this occurs. TW: AIGC & Trump imagery incoming

Making atmospheres of emotionality which serve as functional "breathability" which serve in place of "truth" in the face of epistemic & climate collapse is how they get away with not having any bread to give. It's not bread & circuses any more. It's all circus-as-emotional and psychic safety zone.

Applications are now open for two scholarships at QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre. Investigate how 21st-century media changes and challenges the social role of media by gathering detailed evidence about how Australians use media (all forms, old and new). More information here: qut.to/28a6y

Who knew the Butlerian Jihad would be so Catholic

Congratulations to PhD candidate, @jiarut.bsky.social, for her two new articles in June! 🎉 The first is a solo authored paper, "Broadcasting your virtual self: Exploring the authenticity construction and subjectivity of VTubers in China" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

It was a real privilege to chat with @katemfitzgerald.bsky.social about fact checking and the new paper on the relationships between digital platforms, governments, and fact checkers co-wrote with @silmonn.bsky.social and @riedlinm.bsky.social

“What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians,” he said. Not an antisemite. www.huffpost.com/entry/israel...

"France’s AI minister calls for a Europe-wide ban on social media for children under 15" www.euronews.com/next/2025/05...

📢 New from @euprompt.bsky.social project: In Romania's election re-run, we detected multiple pages simultaneously posting identical content that mixes AI-generated material (read AI slop) with political messaging. Read our full investigation: www.euractiv.ro/facts-not-fa...

Delighted to announce that my PhD thesis "Misinformation Claims in Australian News: Lies, Fakes, and Scare Campaigns" is now available on QUT E-Prints at doi.org/10.5204/thes.... Big moment 🥹 massive, unspeakably huge thanks to my family, my supervisors, and my thoughtful and engaged interviewees.

💡 NEW ARTICLE ALERT 💡 My article with @qutdmrc.bsky.social colleagues @kkasianenko.bsky.social, @vishneww.bsky.social, @essideh.com, and @voddenlaura.bsky.social is now out in Social Media + Society. We introduce a new analytics method: #PracticeMapping. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

“Meta’s recent changes are part of a larger shift by US tech companies to align with conservative leaders, which will have implications for global efforts towards information integrity.” New #wjds paper by @nedwatt.bsky.social, Silvia Montaña-Niño & @riedlinm.bsky.social ➡️ doi.org/10.34669/wi....

Our newly published short article looks at the recent dynamics in platform fact checking and tries to contextualise this within a ~decade of formal platform-fact checker relationships and now community notes as an emerging popular content-contextualisation approach. Open access so take a look!

Strongly recommend this article to folks grappling with crowd-sourced models for content-contextualisation which is increasingly popular among platforms, most recently TikTok

I saw an ad over the weekend for Apple's #cleanup photo editing feature, now accessible through the default photos app on eligible devices, and wrote this in @aunz.theconversation.com about what this means for trust in #visual media. 🔗 theconversation.com/tools-like-a... @admscentre.org.au

“AI robot dogs can protect us from land mines” describes well the techno-solutionist pyramid-scheme dominating these spaces at the moment. Old mate should maybe watch the AI robot dog episode of Black Mirror… Are we building tools for liberation, or automating oppression with ‘cooler’ aesthetics?

Any disinfo researchers out there might have fun with what seems to be a generative AI slop content machine paired with climate denial / delay Showed up in a Google News summary. Fake staff. Other slop sites listed under same owner. Man, the internet is really dying

New paper from PhD researcher, Kateryna Kasianenko @kkasianenko.bsky.social! In her article, she writes about the digital practices of Japanese Twitter users supporting Ukraine following Russia's full scale invasion. You can read this important work here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...